01 · OPEN CONTENT
Press OPEN FILE or drop videos / images anywhere in the window — several at once if you like. They line up as slots in the clip at the left edge; click a slot or press its number to switch. Files play straight from your disk — nothing is uploaded or copied.
Tap OPEN FILE and pick videos or images on your phone — several at once if you like. They line up in the clip at the top of the screen. Files play straight from your phone — nothing is uploaded or copied.
From the home screen the player picks the mode by the file: 2:1 goes to 360, a flat picture (16:9, scope, 4:3) and a name starting FD_, PL_ or FT_ to FULLDOME 180, a square goes to the dome mode you used last, a name starting SRD_ goes to SRD, and «srd» elsewhere in the name too unless the picture is flat. Inside a mode OPEN keeps the current mode — only a flat picture opened in 360 or SRD goes to FULLDOME 180, the mode that shows it as a frame, as AR DOME does.
Formats: MP4 (H.264 / HEVC), WebM, JPG / PNG. ProRes plays in Safari on Mac only.
02 · MODES
FULLDOME 180 — classic planetarium dome, square domemaster. Tilt the dome, change FOV.
SRD 280° — Super Reality Dome, you stand inside a real-scale dome. Pick the dome size; the floor grid shows FRONT / BACK / LEFT / RIGHT.
VIDEO 360 / PHOTO 360 — full sphere, 2:1 equirectangular. A floor grid with FRONT / BACK / LEFT / RIGHT keeps your bearings; Bthe floor button in the panel hides it. PITCH tips the whole panorama, for footage shot off the level.
AR DOME — the dome over your camera picture, in your room or outside.
DEPTH — in FULLDOME 180 it moves you back from the centre to the last row: under the dome's back edge, never out of it — the figure button is there to see the dome from outside. In a flying theater it runs as far as in a planetarium of the same size; in AR DOME it runs to 10 m, to see the dome standing further off in your room.
EYE — how high your eyes are over the floor: 1.60 m for an adult standing, about 1.20 seated in a planetarium's chair, 1.00 for a child. The floor, the last row for DEPTH and the figure — 10 cm taller than its eyes — follow it. Tap the number for 1.60.
VR IN THE DOME — open a VR file (2:1, or VR_ in the name) in FULLDOME 180, SRD 280 or AR DOME and it is converted to the dome on the fly: no render, nothing is saved. From the home screen a VR file still opens in VIDEO 360 or PHOTO 360 — switch to a dome mode and it is converted there. In the clip it sits under VR → DOME on the fulldome and VR → SRD on the SRD. OFFSET turns the camera inside the VR sphere, in the numbers of the ARK DomeConvertor script: V is the tilt — where the camera looks, 0° THEATER straight ahead, 45° FULLDOME, 90° ZENITH — H the pan, R the roll. On the SRD the camera looks down at the floor, as in the script, and only H turns.
FLAT IN THE DOME — a flat video or picture (16:9, scope, 4:3 — neither square nor 2:1, and no prefix in the name) opened in FULLDOME 180 or AR DOME stands on the dome as a frame, the way After Effects' VR Plane to Sphere puts it: nothing is rendered. In the clip it sits under FLAT → DOME. SCALE is the frame's height in degrees, as Scale in After Effects' VR Plane to Sphere — the same number gives the same frame; OFFSET V and R move the camera as for a VR file — at 45° the frame stands halfway up the front of the dome — and X, in H's place, turns the picture itself towards or away from you, as Source Tilt (X axis) in After Effects: a frame low in a planetarium can face the audience instead of standing at a slant. BACK lights the dark round the frame with the same picture, stretched over the whole dome and blurred, as in After Effects; at 0% it stays dark. GLOW is Ambilight: a thin light line on the frame's edge and a glow in the colours of the picture's own edge, following the video; at 0% it is off. From the home screen it opens in FULLDOME 180 by itself.
BACKGROUND — with a flat file on the fulldome, the BACK / GROUND button over FRUSTUM puts a VR panorama (a 2:1 picture) under the frame instead of the blurred picture: a sharp environment, laid on the dome as a VR file is. While the button is lit, OFFSET H, V and R turn the background; press it again and they move the frame, the background staying. BACK is its brightness. The × on the button takes it away. The picture stays on your device, like every file you open.
03 · THE CLIP
Every file you open goes into the clip — the row of tiles at the top. In a dome mode the tiles are categories: tap one to see its shows, tap a show to play it. Each slot remembers its own timecode, so you compare versions at the same moment. × removes a slot; the clip stays with you when you change the dome mode.
Every file you open goes into the clip — the column of slots at the left edge. Load ten renders at once, then switch between them with a click, the number keys or ↑ ↓. Each slot remembers its own timecode, so you compare versions at the same moment. × removes a slot; the clip stays with you when you change the dome mode.
04 · GUIDES & RIG
The gray ring is the dome rig — where the picture ends. It stays on screen. The lime edge line and direction labels are guides: they go away with the panel and come back with it: the PANEL button or P with a mouse, any touch on a phone. The lime edge of the SRD floor stays with the floor — it is the only edge the floor has.
B or the floor button in the panelThe floor button in the panel hides rig and guides together — for clean screen recordings.
GRID — the GRID button or G. On the SRD 280 it is the dome's own coordinates, drawn on the dome over the picture and laid out like the calibration grid in a real SRD: rows A, B, C… from the floor up, FRONT, LEFT, RIGHT and BACK on the horizon; the GRID slider in the panel (SRD only) fills its cells, up to a solid test pattern. On the fulldome it is the grid of the ARK DomeConvertor script: a ring every 15° of altitude, a spoke every 30°, and fainter ones in between. With a flat file a lime zone shows the 90° × 90° view of a camera looking at the frame — the comfortable size: keep the frame inside it and it reads as a flat picture. Once the frame is set, the FRUSTUM button next to GRID puts the zone away and leaves the dome's grid.
Look around: drag with the mouse.
